Video Resume: How You can Get it Right

‘Video Resume’ (VR) is one of the recent recruiting trends. It is a great tool for applicants to move beyond the submission of a dull paper resume with a cover letter, and work history.

Lasting not more than a minute, a VR can be your best shot in creating an indelible first impression on a recruiter. As the VR gets played, you can showcase directly your communication skills, job potentials, personality traits, and other key details.

Video Resume as a new trend

The-paper-only resume is slowly becoming obsolete, and current trends include social media resumes and video resumes. The hypercompetitive, superfast, global job-market has necessitated these innovations; it’s becoming increasingly difficult for good candidates to stand out among similar profiles.

A few recent trends include:

The social media resume: Nearly 90% of employers report vacancies using social media.

Video resume: One out of two employers now prefers video resumes in selecting suitable candidates.

Infographic resume: With so much content and competition, information in chunks gets more mileage. Charts and graphs make the analysis and selection process simpler by creating a compelling case to hire.

Why video resume is a good idea

An employer needs to spend an average of 5-7 minutes looking at a paper resume: it is impersonal, static and dead print.

A VR, on the other hand, demands just 1 to 2 minutes of an employer: it is personal and dynamic, with a face and a voice. It plays a series of lively images, speaking directly to the employer, thus helping to form an impression of the personality of the candidate.

That is why nearly 90% of employers admit they prefer to watch a video resume. Nearly 50% of employers value a video resume as a smart tool in assessing a candidate’s character and appearance, the latter being the first essential requirement for a number of jobs.

Do’s and Don’ts

The following tips will help you make your VR engaging and creative with optimal effect.

Do’s

Know the audience: Before you start circulating your VR or uploading it on YouTube and other social media, make sure you know for certain the target industry/company. Is the organization open to creativity and does it have room for flexibility and freedom?

Keep it short and sweet: A video resume is not meant to be your exhaustive database of information. Its main purpose is to coax employers and recruiters in a minute or two to shortlist you and call for an interview.

Showcase yourself: Don’t just sit down nonchalantly, but dress nicely, and speak out your accomplishments. Hook the viewer with testimonials, pictures, and case examples.

Dress professionally: Though a video resume can present your own personal style, try to keep it professional and within the bounds of the work culture of your target organization. This will show that you can be both an individual performer as well as a team player.

DON’Ts

Don’t rush the VR production process: The most basic requirement is that you should be seen and heard clearly in your best light. Although you can do the production yourself, be wary of churning out a boring VR; odds are that you would need some professional help, which you shouldn’t grudge.

Check, test, and validate your VR: Check, test, and validate your VR yourself, before uploading it. It would be even better to have the feedback of a sample audience and make changes wherever necessary.

In a world where information about a candidate is easy to find online in social media, a video resume helps validate that information, augment it with value-added inputs, and create a great first impression.

The innovativeness of the VR makes it a welcome break for recruiters and employers who could be stressed out from scanning innumerable prosaic paper resumes. Do not hesitate to invest in a VR, the next time you apply for a dream job. Your chances of success will surely be bright.